It is often necessary or desirable to provide a curved surface. In relation to the present invention, curved surfaces are understood to be surfaces that are curved in a first or second direction but are substantially linear in a direction that extends perpendicular to the first or second direction. Curved surfaces are often required when constructing furniture or buildings. There are many other applications where the provision of a curved surface is necessary or desirable, for example, when casting concrete, vacuum forming plastics, forming thermoplastics into curves and when forming curved sections of glass fibre or fibre reinforced plastics or carbon fibre.
In furniture and in the design of buildings, the curved surfaces are often vertical surfaces and these surfaces are generally curved along a horizontal direction. However the present invention is not limited to vertical and or horizontal curved surfaces. Indeed, the invention could be applied to generally planar surfaces that have undulating or wavy surfaces. Curved surfaces used in the construction of furniture or buildings can either form part of the construction themselves, or can be used as templates for forming curved surfaces out of other materials. For example, when forming wooden furniture with curved surfaces it is necessary to have a template or former that defines a resilient substantially rigid curved surface of the correct shape in order to form the wood of the furniture to the correct shape.
Currently, most curved templates, formers, or moulds are formed of conventional materials and machined or otherwise shaped in a bespoke manner. For example, if a curved surface is needed for forming wooden furniture then a surface of the correct shape may be cut from a suitable material. As the surface will be specific to the curve required for the specific piece of furniture being constructed it cannot be used for any other surfaces. This may mean that the template, former or mould can only be used for a specific shape and thrown away after use when no longer required. Therefore, this method of forming templates, formers, or moulds for curved wooden furniture is relatively expensive and wasteful.
Modular components such as those described in EP1802841 (Reau Ag & CO), DE3031803 (Adolf Seuster GmbH), WO01/36777 (Reau Ag & C0), EP0669444 (Legeais), FR2264937 (Praquin), DE2209187 (Reipe Werk) and FR2737751 (Exten Plast), are designed for such uses as roller shutter doors, or roller shutter curtains, or for use as fences, or the like, but none of these documents disclose structurally rigid modular components that can be used in the manner proposed by the present invention.